Jesus and Cthulhu
by Morris Kenyon
Summary: A take on certain well-known incidents from the New Testament, reworked according to HP Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. WARNING: This story is probably blasphemous. If you are in any way religious, then you are VERY likely to be offended by this content. You have been warned so if you read on then it is on your own head.
1. Chapter 1 Sermon on the Mount

**WARNING:** This story is probably blasphemous. If you are in any way religious, then you are VERY likely to be offended by this content. You have been warned so if you read on then it is on your own head.

**JESUS & CTHULHU**

Chapter 1: The Sermon on the Mount.

While he was preaching the Sermon on the Mount, what if Jesus was rudely interrupted? I do not own any of the characters in this series of stories. Not even Jesus.

**FROM THE RAVINGS OF UNHOLY HOWARD OF PROVIDENCE:**

1 And seeing the multitudes, Jesus went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him and he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,

2 "Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

3 "Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

4 "Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth..."

5 And then a massive shape rose up from out of the Sea of Galilee until it dominated the mountain. Yea, manlike but vaster it reached up out of the waters. 6 Bat-like narrow wings extended from its back, stretching out, blotting out the darkening sky. In their shade, night fell and a chill wind, colder than the wastes between the stars, poured forth. Icy cold lay on the earth and the multitude's clothes.

7 Yea, worse was the immense creature's head. Beneath eyes rimmed with red, a mass of tentacles stretched forth around its gaping maw. Garlanded like Caesar, dank and rotten purple weed crowned its terrible head. 8 It roared, a bellow of mixed rage and triumph, a scream of age-old yearning that echoed and re-echoed over Galilee. It's stench was of rotting fish mixed with fouler odours, filling the multitude's noses. 9 Horror of the unutterable chaos of the universe blasted their spirits leaving their shattered souls to wander unholy voids between the spheres.

10 The entire crowd sank to their knees wailing in terror. Still the being reached up out of the Sea until it seemed to fill the skies.

11 "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn," the being bellowed.

12 "Speakest not thou Aramaic? Or even better, bible English?" Jesus asketh.

13 "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn," the monster roared, yea twice and thrice to make the heavens tremble.

14 "Sorry, pal, your speech passeth all understanding," said Jesus shrugging his shoulders. "Now I hath a sermon to delivereth. So boggeth off before I kicketh thine ass. Or wither thy limbs like I witherest fig trees."

15 Looking around at the now fleeing multitudes, Jesus turned to the monster.

"Thou hath wrecked my sermon on the mount. That was meantest to be my centrepiece when I explaineth what I am here on earth about. 16 Verily, I shall now smiteth thee. For I am the Son of God and yet at the same time, I am also my Father. As well as a Holy Ghost. Whooo-oo! Worketh thou out the Trinity for it beateth even me."

17 The monster looked at Jesus and shook its head. Its lips formed human words with difficulty. "And I thought my cultists were insane but you've got them beat."

18 With one great taloned paw, it made a giant fist and brought it down on the Son Of God, thus squashing him flat. A crater stained with blood was all that was left when the monster lifted its giant fist.

19 "No. I shall inherit the earth and all within it. Not the meek," the Great Old One announced.

20 Peter turned to the rest of the disciples. "Well, that's Christianity finished before it got off the starting blocks. Or is that finishedeth? I never knew why he talked that way. Shall we start worshipping Cthulhu instead?"

21 "Might as well," they replied. "At least we can jack in all that healing of scabby lepers. Or feeding five thousand welfare bums on loaves and fishes."

22 "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn," the disciples chanted.

23 And there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth throughout the land for ever more.

The Ravings of Unholy Howard of Providence Chapter 1 verses 1 – 23.


	2. Chapter 2 Praying

Chapter 2: Praying.

_From the Gospel of Matthew Chapter 6, verse 6._

_6__ But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly._

**FROM THE RAVINGS OF UNHOLY HOWARD OF PROVIDENCE:**

1And the listener, a creature named Talongast, said, "Thou wishest me to pray to my Father? Do thou knowest whom my Father is?" 2 The listener was shrouded, his face veiled and hidden. He was a dealer in antiquities found beneath the Egyptian deserts. Peter the disciple shuddered as the man stunk like unto a corpse, his clothes filthy with grave mould and his voice sounded like one who dined on unclean things. 3 The man had a small child by his side whom he had bought in the slave market for a purse of silver coins.

4 Yet Jesus had turned away to answer other questions and only Peter watched as the man loped away dragging the child, the crowd shrinking away from his foul touch. 5 Back in his home, the man, if man it was, entered his cellar where he kept hidden an altar made of bones draped with human skin and prayed to his Father in secret:

6 "O friend and companion of night, thou who rejoicest in the baying of dogs and spilt blood, who wanderest in the midst of shades among the tombs, who longest for blood and bringest terror to mortals, Gorgo, Mormo, thousand-faced moon, look favourably on our sacrifices!"

7 The knife fell, the child died, yet Talongast's father's lips were merely wetted for now. The daemon Morddoth would soon require more blood in order to be sated.

The Ravings of Unholy Howard of Providence Chapter 2 verses 1 – 7.


	3. Chapter 3 Blood

Chapter 3: Blood.

_Hebrews Chapter 9 verse 22_

_22__ And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission._

**FROM THE RAVINGS OF UNHOLY HOWARD OF PROVIDENCE:**

1 And having made his sacrifices, Talongast the ghoul knew he must purge the shrine with blood. Nothing else would Morddoth, the Great Old One, find acceptable. The offering of one child would merely wet the god's lips. 2 Accordingly, he slipped by hidden alleyways and passages unknown to most of that town until he stood by the harbour in the city of Ashdod. There, in a hidden corner, he waited until that sinister galley with black sails put in.

3 These galleys had long been banned from the great ports of Tyre and Sidon yet still did business at Ashdod. Talongast stepped out of his hidden alcove and approached the merchants. 4 They had done business many times before and the merchants waxed exceedingly glad to see him again. On the quayside they offered him sweet wine from bottles carven from rubies.

5 Many were the traders who refused to have any dealings with the merchants who sailed in ships with black sails but Talongast had no such scruples. 6 The reluctant traders of Ashdod said the ship came from beyond the curves of the world and no good would come to those who dealt with such as came from those ships.

7 For the crew were exceedingly strange and looked like no other men in the world. For they had unnaturally wide mouths that smiled too much and wore turbans with strange horns in the front where no such horns should be. 8 Also, the merchants wondered why the rowers never came on deck. And why did they require such large numbers of slaves? Truly, these were questions the merchants of Ashdod did not want to know the answers.

9 After drinking with the merchants, Talongast spoke with them and purchased from them a number of slaves. The merchants were mostly interested in the fat black men of Punt and Nubia so they had a number of slaves they had little use for and wished to dispose of cheaply. 10 These were the slaves that Talongast purchased to the number of forty. 11 The merchants were pleased with what Talongast offered in trade for they were items of great antiquity coming as they did from unhallowed tombs lost beneath the shifting sands of the Egyptian deserts. For by trade, Talongast the ghoul was a grave-robber.

12 The merchants stowed the jewelled and gilded items on board. Yet it was scrolls of papyrus that they coveted most for the merchants desired to learn the lost secrets of the Pharaohs that the Pharaohs had learned in turn from Atlantis, that impious land sunk beneath the rushing waves beyond the Pillars of Hercules. 13 Talongast watched from the quayside as the galley left the harbour for the open sea, the oars rising and falling with an uncanny precision. No drum beat time nor did any rower miss a beat. Talongast himself was glad that he did not know the identities of these hidden rowers.

14 Taking his slaves by forced marches, Talongast led them to his villa on the foothills of Golgotha, the mountain of skulls. There he locked them within a disused granary, for Talongast had no use for bread, and summoned the rest of his kin. 15 To his summons they came out from their tombs, catacombs, sepulchres, mausoleums and graves where they dwelt with and fed upon the dead. The oldest ghoul, a creature long steeped in evil ways, looked at Talongast with his crimson eyes.

16 "You called and we came," the old ghoul said, gnawing on a century-old thighbone. "We must atone to the Great Old Ones for we are sorely oppressed by the humans of the upper world. They are guarding their dead against our nocturnal foraging and it is becoming harder to feast in the manner we were accustomed to in ages past. Worse, they are sending out hunting parties to persecute and kill us. We have lost many of our tribe."

17 Talongast spoke. "The time is ripe. The stars are in alignment. Our lord, Morddoth, the Great Old One, awakens and demands sacrifice to hide us from the persecution of the humans of the upper world."

18 The ghouls glibbered and meeped agreement. Then they opened the granary and dragged the affrighted slaves to Talongast's cellar where was kept hidden from prying eyes a horrid altar made of bones draped with human skin. 19 Then, with suitable supplications and chants they made their offerings to Morddoth and other deities which cannot be mentioned until the cellar was awash with blood and no slave was alive.

20 And Morddoth and the other Great Old Ones looked down and were pleased with what they saw and, for as long as they continued making due obeisance, granted the ghouls remission from their enemies.

21 "Iä! Shub-Niggurath! The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young!"

The Ravings of Unholy Howard of Providence Chapter 3 verses 1 – 23.


	4. Chapter 4 Let the Dead Bury their Dead

Chapter 4: Let the Dead Bury Their Dead.

_Matthew Chapter 8 verses 21 and 22:_

_21__ And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. __22__ But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead._

**FROM THE RAVINGS OF UNHOLY HOWARD OF PROVIDENCE:**

1 So the disciple followed the others as they attended Jesus upon his ministry, while at his old home the women of the household waited in vain for his return. 2 "What shall we do with the body of my father-in-law?" wailed Miriam, his wife. "For there is no man here to say the prayers for the dead nor to arrange the funeral now that Nahum is following that desert preacher."

3 "I shall ask at the marketplace," said her sister, "As there must be some man there who can advise us." So the woman left the house and went to the marketplace.

4 Yet nobody was willing to help as the family were poor and could not afford a lavish funeral with professional mourners. Then a man, swathed head to toe in dusty desert robes so that no part of his body was shown, came forth from the shadows.

5 "I can help you. Let me and my clan take the body and we will dispose of it with all respect and reverence."

6 "But we cannot afford to pay for your services except a widow's mite."

7 "Put that from your mind. My clan and I require no payment." The woman shivered as if a cloud had crossed the sun but she had no-one else she could turn to so she returned to Miriam's house. A few hours later, Miriam admitted the man and his friends. 8 Like him, they were hid their forms beneath layers of clothing. At first, Miriam thought they might be unclean lepers but instead they smelled of old embalming spices, like those who mummify, which reassured her.

9 Carefully, the men washed the body and anointed it with herbs and spices before saying prayers in an unknown tongue and lastly wrapping it in a clean shroud. 10 Then they carried the remains out of the house, laid them on a cart and took them to a graveyard outside the city walls. The women followed, hoping they had done the right thing by entrusting their father-in-law's body to the care of these strangers.

11 During the procession, the odd group kept up a mournful wailing. However, sometimes it felt to the two women as if the cries were false and the mourners were actually laughing. More than once, Miriam wanted to call a stop to the procession but what could she do as she had no-one else?

12 The group arrived at the burial ground just before sunset to find that a shallow grave had already been dug. The strange men then laid the body down and piled a cairn of rocks over it.

13 "You will need to hurry if you are to get back within the city walls before nightfall," said the leading man. Just then, the first horn of sunset sounded from the city gate. 14 Miriam shivered and not just because the air was cooling. 15 In the dusk, the men's swathed forms seemed less like true men and more like – then her mind withdrew from that thought. 16 She realised she and her sister were alone on the edge of the desert in the company of people she knew nothing about. 17 Grabbing her sister's hand, they fled up the path, making it back moments before the gate closed for the night.

18 Back in their home, Miriam cried out in distress, "What have we done? Why did we entrust our father-in-law's body to strangers? 19 This would never have happened if Nahum had not followed that desert preacher but remained here where he belonged."

20 Her sister reminded her that they had escaped with their lives and should give thanks for that.

21 Meanwhile, out in the graveyard, under the moonlight, the men became far less than human and more like feral things that slink by night and infest unhallowed places. 22 They slumped forwards and in the darkness, their eyes glowed redly.

23 "Do not dig him up yet," their leader, a ghoul named Talongast, said. "We will leave him to ripen a few days before we feast." With that the other ghouls meeped assent and sloped off in search of less wholesome viands until their Sabbath feast.

24 What happened to the man who followed the desert preacher is unknown.

Ravings of Unholy Howard of Providence Chapter 4 verses 1 – 24.


End file.
